I would like to note that based on conversations with friends of mine, Japanese students studying in Canada, it would appear that people of all ages reading manga is not exactly the norm. Adults who read manga and watch anime, according to them, were usually considered geeky in the way that Adult gamers are considered geeky here. Most of my friends said they had grown out of the managa and anime that they watched in their teens. It is true that animation is held in higher regard there, and this could possibly be tainted by their frustrations with North American perceptions of "Japanese Culture"... particularly odious to them are North Americans who always bring up anime or manga when speaking to them, so it could be a little bit of backlash.

It's a little known fact that American animators at Disney were great inspirations for Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and the "God of Manga." Tiffany Martin believes that Americans would be enriched by understanding and appreciating the cross-pollination between our two cultures.

I love Japanese stuff just because I love fantastic realism, and cartoons and comics are the best media to work with them, but the Animation Age Ghetto weights heavily upon most Western works. Whenever I try stepping into full otaku grounds I realize the more intrincate Japanese works essentially play off some sort of deep social code I don't understand at all and have to step back.

Also, this is one of two articles this week in which a non-gaming, highly nerdy topic is discussed, and in which I realize the author is female when she mentions herself in the third person, as an aside on the second page. COINCIDENCE?

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The story behind that's actually kind of interesting. In the smaller villages by the sea, while the men were out working the rice fields, the young girls would go and dive for pearls. It was incredibly dangerous but if they actually found any then they'd be able to sell them for a chunk of money and life would be peachy for a good while.

This didn't exactly seem to occur to the men, who wondered to themselves why on earth these girls would do something so dangerous and came up with the answer that they were getting it on with the tentacled residents of the ocean because they weren't satisfied with the single appendage of their men back home. And thus, tentacle porn was born.

JakobBloch:The Last Exhile. In this series, which is aimed at 9-13 year old

Hold on, hold on. Last Exile was aimed at 9-13 year olds? I'm having a really hard time believing that...

Anyway, on topic: I think the story about how modern manga was heavily influenced by western media and later influenced western media in turn is true for a lot of things in Japan.

There are plenty of examples when it comes to technological advances, but even when looking only at videogames, the examples are easy to find.

Gaming Consoles, for example. The first few videogame console generations were American, and unless I'm mistaken it wasn't until the crash of '83 that Japan became serious about consoles with the Famicon/NES. Nowadays, Japan has a gigantic influence on the console market, with two of the three major players being Japanese.

RPGs are another good example. Both pen-and-paper RPGs and videogame RPGs originated in the West. After games like Ultima and Wizardry became successes in Japan, they started making what would be the first 'JRPGs', a subgenre that would later become highly popular in the West as well.

The Random One:I love Japanese stuff just because I love fantastic realism, and cartoons and comics are the best media to work with them, but the Animation Age Ghetto weights heavily upon most Western works. Whenever I try stepping into full otaku grounds I realize the more intrincate Japanese works essentially play off some sort of deep social code I don't understand at all and have to step back.

Also, this is one of two articles this week in which a non-gaming, highly nerdy topic is discussed, and in which I realize the author is female when she mentions herself in the third person, as an aside on the second page. COINCIDENCE?

old news unfortunately, the anime greats have all acknowledged the influence of disney on early anime, though Looking at american animation like avatar and samurai jack its fair to say the influences went both ways...

The main thing is The japanese took what disney started and ran with it, which is why more often than not a lot of animation from japan is way more sophisticated and caters to a much broader audience, mainly because they have never been constrained by what demographic the medium is aimed at...

Carl Barks may not be that famous over the pond, but here in Norway he's a pretty famous fella for those that read Disney comics. I prefer Don Rosa though. His art style and writing has always captivated me.

In 1935, a humble in-betweener (one of the worst jobs in animation) at Disney named Carl Barks began a career that would contribute heavily to comics on a global scale. You've likely never heard of him, though you've no doubt seen his depictions of Donald Duck.

Never heard of Uncle Carl?! What do you take us for? :P

My sentiments exactly.

And on the subject of Kimba/Simba, it always bothers me that people think that the likenesses of the names prove that Tezuka was ripped off. The word "Simba" simply means "lion".

Good article, even I learned something here. It is sad that our culture is so stupidly macho that it interfears with how most Americans absorb entertainment. Oh well, at least some of us understand forigen influences on our cartoons/anime.

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The story behind that's actually kind of interesting. In the smaller villages by the sea, while the men were out working the rice fields, the young girls would go and dive for pearls. It was incredibly dangerous but if they actually found any then they'd be able to sell them for a chunk of money and life would be peachy for a good while.

This didn't exactly seem to occur to the men, who wondered to themselves why on earth these girls would do something so dangerous and came up with the answer that they were getting it on with the tentacled residents of the ocean because they weren't satisfied with the single appendage of their men back home. And thus, tentacle porn was born.

Also I think there was a ban on male genitalia so they needed substitutes.

Well, let's use an analogy: jidaigeki, or historical dramas, are hundreds of years old in Japan, and are the basis for chanbara, or swordfighting movies. But it's well-known that Kurosawa, Inagaki and the other pioneering directors of chanbara films in the 1950s and 60s were heavily inspired by American western films of the 30s and 40s. Likewise, many "spaghetti" westerns of the 60s and 70s were in turn inspired by (or direct rip-offs of) the chanbara films. It's a cycle.

Likewise, manga is centuries old in Japan, but the modern pop-culture manga we know in the West was born from Tezuka's work in the 30s and onward, and Tezuka was definitely influenced by Disney comics of the 30s. Whenever you see a manga character with big eyes, that's Tezuka influenced by Mickey Mouse. In turn, a pronounced manga/anime influence was seen in the West, starting probably around the late 70s and definitely noticeable by the mid-90s.

Dark Templar:Good article, even I learned something here. It is sad that our culture is so stupidly macho that it interfears with how most Americans absorb entertainment. Oh well, at least some of us understand forigen influences on our cartoons/anime.

lol, reported for what? calling you out for the socially perverted people you are? watch real cartoons like "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" or "Arthur". Hell, why don't you watch real AMERICAN history like "Liberty Kids". Just like your beloved Anime, its good for people of all ages, especially people like you who don't know what country they're in!

There is a reason the Japanese lost WW2 and didn't take over the world: we killed thousands and thousands of 'em with fire! Then we nuked 'em real good. Now we see them trying to take over our society with their poorly proportioned pictures, and we need to respond with a similar reaction to the 40s. Remember the concentration camps we put all of those traitorous japs on American soil??? maybe its time we think about resurrecting them.

Aliens from Mars:There is a reason the Japanese lost WW2 and didn't take over the world: we killed thousands and thousands of 'em with fire! Then we nuked 'em real good. Now we see them trying to take over our society with their poorly proportioned pictures, and we need to respond with a similar reaction to the 40s. Remember the concentration camps we put all of those traitorous japs on American soil??? maybe its time we think about resurrecting them.

Dude, chill out. It's because of people like you that there was a problem in the first place. People like you from both sides. Artwork is percieved differently by everyone, and that's the beauty of it.

Aliens from Mars:watch real cartoons like "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" or "Arthur". Hell, why don't you watch real AMERICAN history like "Liberty Kids".

Why would I bother learning about a country when my opinion on it is influenced by idiots like you? Do you always automatically assume that everyone on the internet is either American or Japanese?Refer to first quote that strengthens the "Americans wank over guns and weapons" stereotype. There's another point towards it (no offence to real people in America).

Aliens from Mars:Just like your beloved Anime, its good for people of all ages, especially people like you who don't know what country they're in!

Cultural diversity is the way of the future, like it or not. That's the only way we can solve the world's problems, by the world working together.

/in before usual reply of "killing them will solve it"

Intermingling of cultures is the first step. Did you even read the article? Just as anime and manga has an influence on the western societies, Disney has a similar influence in Japan. Each culture has a lot to learn from the other in terms of values. This is why people like you can't understand such things.

In any case, I always found it rather funny that the Japanese employ kiddy esthetics to tell mature stories while the USA use mature esthetics to tell a kiddy story.

European animation generally gravitates toward the American side of things but the European classics of comics adhere to the Japanese side of the above equation. So I tend to think Europe is all over the place when it comes to comics and animation. This is the reason many of the greatest writers in American comics are from British soil, they're not bound by American culture.

"Although it's obvious that we don't understand the appeal of Hard Gay..." We do. He's a guy who dresses and acts funny. There isn't any more to it than that. I think the mistake is thinking there's some "secret Japanese thinking" that will make people get the appeal.

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The story behind that's actually kind of interesting. In the smaller villages by the sea, while the men were out working the rice fields, the young girls would go and dive for pearls. It was incredibly dangerous but if they actually found any then they'd be able to sell them for a chunk of money and life would be peachy for a good while.

This didn't exactly seem to occur to the men, who wondered to themselves why on earth these girls would do something so dangerous and came up with the answer that they were getting it on with the tentacled residents of the ocean because they weren't satisfied with the single appendage of their men back home. And thus, tentacle porn was born.

Also I think there was a ban on male genitalia so they needed substitutes.

Whatever the case, half of the avatars on this thread are that of Japanese style drawing.

And..Twilight didn't sell because it sucks, not because people "don't get it". The Japanese teenage girls most likely already have a male idol that they throw themselves at. Just admit it--Twilight is nothing but softcore male porn. If someone else already have their own porn, they wouldn't give a crap about it.

I'm surprised you can go through an entire article informing people about culture differences and mixbreeding in comics and cartoons, yet completely leave out Barefoot Gen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen (Or Grave of the Fireflies, for that matter).

That or express the racist cartoon version of how Americans thought of Japanese (and Asians) in American comics. Or Japanese thought of Africans for that matter. (though that would be a fun future one.)

On another note, reading this article reminded me of WW1 comics. Buck Rogers is a good example, along with other cowboy comics. Nothing to note here. It's just that oldschool WildWest comics were loved all over the world, to whom could import them.

It's a little known fact that American animators at Disney were great inspirations for Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and the "God of Manga." Tiffany Martin believes that Americans would be enriched by understanding and appreciating the cross-pollination between our two cultures.